


Expected Suddenness

by Emerald_Mischief



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: F/M, Gen, Heartbreak, Hurt Tony Stark, I Don't Even Know, I Love You, I'm Sorry, Past Pepper Potts/Tony Stark, This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things, Tony Stark Does What He Wants, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark Has Issues, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, Tony Stark-centric, breaking up, same tony same, this is me venting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-14
Updated: 2016-09-14
Packaged: 2018-08-14 23:58:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,381
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8034061
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Emerald_Mischief/pseuds/Emerald_Mischief
Summary: Maybe Tony wasn’t meant to be with someone for more than a year or two. Maybe Tony wasn’t meant for anyone but himself. He didn’t deserve her and she didn’t deserve the pain. Now he had lost her and gained pain.





	Expected Suddenness

_“We’ve talked about this, the way you go and do whatever you want with little to no regards to anyone around you. Its not okay.” She spoke, her voice was raised ever so slightly in the desperate need to convey her displeasure. “You can’t just not talk to me for weeks, then suddenly come to me talking at me like we’re the best of friends Tony, you’ve ignored me, you’ve made our conversations short and uncomfortable, you’ve been the worst partner in the history of partners.” She sighed, rubbing her lengthy nose. “You show little emotion towards any choices, you’ve said this would change and it hasn’t. There’s nothing to fix anymore. There’s nothing here for you.” she turned to look at him, her eyes sad but determined. “I can keep being your CEO, I can run the company and be your friend when I can but as far as us...” she shook her head, “there’s no more us..I’m sorry, I really am but..your last chance was the last time we talked about this.” She waited a beat, standing there with a file in her hands at her boss’s desk, dressed in deep grey and red heels. “Tony. Do you have anything to say?” she had to prompt him, she always did, he didn’t just...talk. Over the past few months it became clear to Pepper, Tony wasn’t happy but she wanted to be, she needed to be happy and she was tired of the distance. She’d gone weeks without a word from him, he wasn’t considerate, he was too far away even sitting right in front of her._

_He was staring at his desk, little to no emotions reached his face or even registered in his head, he knew it was coming, the inevitable break up, the ‘lets be friends’ talk and then the horrible, awkward encounters that would follow. “No.” it was better to just..continue down the path he was already half a mile down. “Right. Didn’t think so..I’m not going to clean this up, I didn’t want to hurt you but you’ve hurt me far too much Tony..I know you’ll be sad and frankly you should feel something...this display of numbness, its..” she sighed, shaking her head again, she didn’t have words to describe him and his aversions to everything normal. “I have to go.” she didn’t stick around, making her exit quick and almost painless. It was everything but, to Tony._

That had been almost a week ago now. He didn’t see the real need to talk to her about what she had said, it was clearly over and the conversation wouldn’t have been made any better with his two cents. He didn’t think she understood, she didn’t because he didn’t allow her to. She went off, he went off, he promised pointless things and broke them countless times, she had loved him, put up with him, cared for him, cleaned up his messes and he had done nothing but hurt her. “I thought we would have been married by now.” he spoke to the empty living room, he was going to propose, he was hoping that little bit of stability would push him through a few more good years before they’d marry, and the cycle would continue. Maybe Tony wasn’t meant to be with someone for more than a year. Maybe Tony wasn’t meant for anyone but himself. He didn’t deserve her and she didn’t deserve the pain and now he had lost her and gained pain. “Its okay though, its not like I had a ring picked out or anything, oh wait, I did.” of course he did, he saw it in the shop, had for the past two years and never thought it was the time to buy it. When was the right time to buy an engagement ring? Hell, he didn’t even feel confident in the design that was there, he knew she’d say she loved it but would she really have? Probably, Pepper was a smart, sweet, simple girl that loved anything that had even the littlest thoughts behind it, an engagement ring had a lot of thought behind it, two years worth of thought.

He sipped at his coffee, it was midnight and he knew he shouldn’t have been drinking anything that would keep him awake but what did that matter? He sat up till 6am waiting for a call or a text from a redhead that probably was better off without him. His heart always leapt when the phone lit up, when it rang, when it received a text, in both hope and anxiety that he’d done something wrong. Right, his silence was probably wrong, he probably should have given her more than a ‘no’ when she left him but he didn’t...have words, not like she had words. She’d been thinking about it for weeks, probably, how do I approach Tony about this? How do I talk to Tony about this? How do I end things between Tony and I? She was never one to just abandon ship at a leak but Tony’s boat was going down like the Titanic and he was captain, destined to stay and swim with the fishes. He knew one day Pepper would message him a novel about how he was ignorant and he couldn’t care less about her, how his neglect was hurting her and she couldn’t do it anymore, not even as friends. No where in there would be the question, ‘are you okay?’

In the end, Tony knew that whatever little ties they had between them would be severed when Pepper found someone better, someone that could give her exactly what she needed, stability. He knew his mental health was in a serious decline, he tried to keep the damage under control but that meant shutting off his emotions, which meant cutting ties with anyone that could invoke emotions. He was frozen, he came off as cold and try as he may to show people he cared, he noticed the pattern that only lead to hurt. Maybe he wasn’t doing it right? Maybe his intentions weren’t as clear to them as they were to him? Maybe being stuck in his head because he was always forced there was the thing damaging his relationship with the outside world? He was always forced into a corner, he was either too much or too little, too loud or too soft, he didn’t know where and how to reach the happy medium, he either came off as caring or cold.

He sipped his coffee again, for a genius that knew how to talk the talk and walk the walk he surely couldn’t actually do any real talking. Connections were something he clung to and let go in the same fierce way, even when he didn’t want to. Everyone else got tired of him and it left him little choice to better himself, he tried and it was never good enough. It was all or nothing, he hated that about himself but it was how he always worked. All work, no play or all play and no work. Serious or casual. Good or bad.

He looked over at his phone sitting on the ottoman, he feared even touching it, “it doesn’t really matter though.” he spoke again, his walls were too covered in expensive art to echo but he swore he heard it in his own head. He didn’t feel much at all, drowning himself in caffeine, not worried about the way the anxiety would respond to it later while he laid in bed. He reached over instead to grab his iPod, sticking the earphones into his ears before turning it on, eyes straying to the phone again before sighing, clicking one of his favorite artists and songs, he turned it up as far as it could go. He shut his eyes as the song vibrated through him, his only reprieve from the thoughts (or lack there of) he had. While it still didn’t conjure emotions towards the situation at hand, he was given a chance to concentrate on something other than the incessant static that replaced said feelings. He felt like an old TV with bent bunny ear antenna, working but not picking up a signal to show picture.

**Author's Note:**

> Yeah, I'm still working through some stuff. I know it ends abruptly but it just was a natural stop. I have issues ending stories so. All mistakes are mine, I don't own Tony Stark. I hope you enjoyed it, thank you for reading~


End file.
